Kagan’s thesis on socialism suddenly hot news again

posted at 9:46 pm on May 13, 2010 by Allahpundit

Red State has a copy, leading Erick Erickson to declare, “This proves Elena Kagan is an open and avowed socialist.” Andy Levy‘s sardonic reply:

BREAKING: SOMEONE IN COLLEGE THOUGHT SOCIALISM WAS A GOOD IDEA!

I had trouble loading Red State’s PDF; if you’re having trouble too, no worries. The Weekly Standard was all over this a year ago when Kagan was up for Solicitor General and Doug Ross has compiled some of the more incendiary bits here. (People who knew her at Princeton insist she wasn’t a radical.) I’ve made my own thoughts about college theses clear before, but my esteemed colleague said it better than I did so I’ll just quote him:

I have received a lot of e-mail regarding Princeton’s apparent decision to embargo Michelle Obama’s college thesis. A few purported quotes have begun floating through the ether, which seems surprising if the Obamas have conspired to keep the paper buried at Princeton. The messages all seem to believe that the thesis contains something explosive, especially in terms of racial politics.

Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn’t. Why would anyone be surprised if it did? To paraphrase one of the great lines from South Park, there’s a time and a place for radical thought, and it’s called college. Mrs. Obama wrote the paper 20 years ago, while living in the cocoon of academia. I doubt that it reflects her current state of mind.

It’s not quite as bad as going back to Barack’s kindergarten essays, but it’s just about as irrelevant.

The GOP should and will ask about it — that’s what the Obama standard for “blank slate” nominees requires — but does anyone seriously think she’s going to get Borked over this? Vote in the comments!